Road Trip Update #5: Minneapolis. Mike Cina & Rambo Salinas

We arrived in Minneapolis late Sunday night at the home of Josiah Titus. Josiah got involved with Dust & Grooves a couple of months earlier, when he started doing editorial work for the site. When Minneapolis was selected as a stop, he helped line up local collectors. He met us in the morning and would join us for the rest of the day…and for the next two weeks.

Mike Cina’s record room is set up like a library. One large wall in the back, then two rows of slightly smaller walls. Five faces in all. We covered everything from his early interest in Disco and dance music, to some of his latest intrigues, “white soul” and “yacht rock.”

He has a nearly-complete run of the ECM label, has a large collection of spiritual jazz, and also designs album covers for the label Ghostly International.

Growing up, Mike’s dad, a fan of hard rock and metal, never got his son’s fascination with Disco, but he was happy to cart him along with him on trips to the record store. Thirty years later, Mike is able to trace his collecting back through time to those first digging trips with his dad.

Later that day, we met Justin Salinas, better known as “Rambo,” in his Powderhorn apartment late afternoon. Originally from Alice, Texas, Justin arrived in Minneapolis in 2001. He collects Chicano soul and funk 45s and is one of the founding DJs of Hotpants, a longstanding Minneapolis dance night. As a collector, his deepest affection is for sweet Chicano soul. “Small chicanos, nasally voice, all trying to work together—it just sounds so awesome.”

As he flipped through and put on one 45 after another, the stories began to pour out of him. Hidden behind every record was a story, and behind every story was another story. Taped to the inside of one of his boxes is a “please return” note that begins with, “This is my soul.” And a beautiful soul it is.

That night, with Indian takeout back at Josiah’s, the possibility of him joining the crew on the next leg of the trip came up. A few hours later, shortly before midnight, it was a done deal. The next morning, with his bags packed, he was a traveling member of the Dust & Grooves team.

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..oh man…that note in the record crate…brings tears…. have a friend who has a hand lettered sign that he sets up in his record room every day before he leaves for work that runs something like “Dear Mr Burglar, if you want to steal anything, please take the electrical equipment…that at least I can replace with the insurance money, the records I can’t….”….